Continuing the discussion from Molton knows how to wiki!:
Clarifications are needing to be made somewhere. Putting this in #uncategorized for now, however #unturned-4 or #site-feedback may be a relevant category instead.
Will it replace the FANDOM wiki?
Simple answer: no.
This new wiki will be for Unturned 4 only, until otherwise decided. This was decided during a brief conversation with Nelson regarding the best use of it.
As long as any of the current Unturned wikia staff members edit on the wikia, the wikia will remain largely Unturned 3, Classic, and Antique-oriented. However, if at some point all staff move away from the wikia, then the wikia will likely be adopted by somebody else and start pushing out Unturned 4 information too.
I cannot ever guarantee the preserving of Unturned 3’s information on the wikia, especially—although incredibly unlikely—if FANDOM personally decided to step-in and say something about the divergence.
Is it the official wiki?
Yes.
Is it a Gamepedia wiki?
Simple answer: no.
Gamepedia is a wiki-hosting platform, and the sites hosted on it are known as “wikis.” FANDOM is also a wiki-hosting platform; the sites hosted on it are known as “wikias,” however due to some rebranding sometimes they are just referred to as “wikis.” A “wiki” is not exclusive to any wiki-hosting platform, however.
Ultimately, Gamepedia suffers from the same flaws of FANDOM in regards to restrictions and limitations on creative development, advertisements, and predetermined direction and mass-regulation. Neither can realistically cater to all of the individual communities, although both do take in some feedback from their top wikis.
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For FANDOM? This includes wikis like the Disney wiki, Warframe wiki, Star Wars wiki, RuneScape wiki, Marvel wiki, and Nukapedia.
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For Gamepedia? This includes wikis like the official Minecraft Wiki, Wowpedia (which contains similar information the wikia equivalent), The Vault (which is largely similar to Nukapedia), the Official ARK Survival Evolved Wiki, and the official Terraria Wiki.
This is a semantic wiki. Semantic wikis, generally speaking, are any wiki using MediaWiki. This would include, for example, unturned.gamepedia, unturned.wikia, and wiki.smartlydressedgames. It would not include unturned.wikidot. However, more exclusively speaking, it can just refer to wikis not under any such wiki-hosting site, as is the case here.
The individual pros of using Gamepedia (or an alternative wiki-hosting platform like FANDOM) is that there are extensions developed privately and exclusively for that platform. Also, all of the wikis hosted on the platform are under the same MediaWiki configuration which, although quite limiting, means interconnectivity can exist between multiple wikis (simply put: interwiki features).
- It also means everyone has access to the same extensions (and in FANDOM’s case, a very select few can be additionally enabled), and that there are usually a handful of very directed official projects going on to “improve” the wikis, rather than many minor unofficial projects led to small groups that may fail or never enter a stable state.
This is neither a Gamepedia wiki nor a FANDOM wikia. This is a semantic wiki.
Will it still be community-ran?
Yes. Nelson has provided us an entirely ad-free wiki without the restrictions of FANDOM or Gamepedia so it can be creatively free. This will, of course, also include still being community-ran. However, moving forward more information available on the wiki will be consistently accurate compared to in-game and in files, up-to-date with the latest version, and influenced by input staff request from Nelson.
However, unlike FANDOM wikis, this is not a social site, and it is difficult to effectively design it as one. It will likely be monitored differently than the wikia has been, and most socializing take would typically occur will likely instead take place on other outlets. At that point, it will be important for the wiki to encourage and possibly even facilitate interconnectivity of individual community groups so no individual is lost trying to engage in the Unturned community.
What if I am used to the FANDOM wiki’s skin?
Simple answer: you’re stuck with DarkVector for now.
The FANDOM wiki’s skin is custom-made, private, and exclusive.
FANDOM’s design also cuts the amount of informational space down, facilitates outrageous advertisement spaces, and is an extreme hindrance due to being largely uncustomizable due to their design choices or customization policies.
So you’re stuck with the current skin for now: DarkVector. DarkVector is a modification onto the standardized Vector skin. In the future, the wiki may allow for switching between skins. However, this would require maintaining code for multiple skins so that all information appears comprehensibly to everyone. No guarantees.
Will Nelson be editing on the wiki?
Simple answer: technically yes.
As a replacement to the official Steam guides for modding Unturned, the official modding guides will be made on the wiki! Nelson plans to keep these consistently up-to-date, as a personal reference and a reference for custom content creators.
Aside from those, I am personally unsure of anything else. He may choose to edit to articles, or he may choose to refrain as to avoid “stepping on any toes.”
How long has the wiki existed?
I feel like the domain was acquired over a year ago, to be honest. The topic had come up a couple times before 4 was actually a thing actively discussed by the community. However, the decision to actually make it a thing wasn’t until far later.
The user profiles have also been reset a few times, but… September 27th of 2017 would’ve been when editing actually began, maybe? Possibly August, if we’re including whenever MediaWiki was actually set up.
Maybe.